Snass Sessions: Johnny Peter’s letter from Clinton, BC, 19121
David Douglas Robertson, PhD
Consulting linguist, Spokane, WA, USA
Some background information:
Shoni Pitir of Clinton can be identified with the writer mentioned in Kamloops Wawa #123 (De94)
p200:
Shoni
Shoni Pitirs kopa Klinton iaka mamuk-hilp kanawi iaka
tilikom kopa Chinuk pipa. Taii Shosif, pi Kaptin Dinis klaska ol man pi klaska
mamuk kopa Chinuk pipa.
‘Johnny Peters from Clinton is helping all his
people with the shorthand. Chief Joseph, and Captain Dennis, they’re elders but they
are working on the shorthand.’
1 Clinton, BC is a historically Secwépemc (“Shuswap”) Salish community. I have standardized Johnny Peter’s
spellings to match those familiar to us in the Kamloops Wawa newspaper. However, he makes a remarkable
innovation. He places the letter h at the start of words to show that they need to have the proper Indigenous
pronunciations: htlap = /t’ɬáp/, hko = /q’úʔ/, hka = /qʰá/.
• If you see [SIC] in square brackets it shows possible mistakes in the writing;
other material [in square brackets] is inferred and added by me.
• *Asterisked* material shows an uncertain reading of the Chinuk Pipa writing.
• Underlined material is in other languages than Chinook Jargon.
• Anything < in angled brackets > is non-Chinuk Pipa, i.e. written as standard English in the original document.
• The notation (Ø) shows that you can understand a clause to contain either “silent IT”or a “silent preposition”;
other material (in parentheses) is just my addition to make the translation more readable.
• I have put line breaks between every clause-containing sentence, and added punctuation, to help the reader. At the
same time, I’ve preserved Johnny Peter’s own “=” punctuation marks. I’m experimenting with extra indentation to
show the existence of subordinate clauses – and to reflect the flow of the speaker’s thoughts.
The letter:
Fibrwari < 5. 1912 >
‘February 5, 1912.’
Pir Lshyun kopa Kamlups,
‘P.re Le Jeune at Kamloops,’
Naika tlap maika pipa.
‘I received your letter.’
= Naika tlus-tomtom kopa maika
‘I’ll appreciate you’
= pus kwanisim maika mash pipa kopa nsaika.
‘if you’ll keep sending the (Kamloops Wawa) paper to us.’
= Ilo-ikta2 siisim tlap3 kopa-iakwa, (Ø) Klinton.
‘No kind of news reaches over here, (at) Clinton.’
Naika siisim kopa tilikom ukuk pipa
‘I report to the people (about) those letters’
[maika] mash kopa naika.
‘that [you] send to me.’
= Maika komtaks,
‘You’ll remember,’
maika wawa kopa Bonapart kopa naika, ukuk styuil-buk
‘you mentioned at Bonaparte to me, that prayer book’
= maika tiki patlach kopa naika.
‘you wanted to give to me.’
= = Naika ilo komtaks
‘I don’t know’
pus naika klatwa kopa Kamlups = kopa < 14 > March.
‘whether I’ll be going to Kamloops for the 14th of March.’
Ayu tilikom klatwa (Ø) Kamlups;
‘Plenty of people are going to Kamloops;’
= Naika ilo komtaks
‘I’m not sure’
pus-kata4 iaka5 mamuk.
‘how they’ll work it.’
= = Kanawi nsaika Klinton tilikom iaka tlus,
2 Ilo-ikta + noun = ‘no kind of [that noun]’.
3 Tlap always carries in itself the sense of ‘managing to do’ something, ‘winding up’ doing something, without having
the ultimate control over the outcome. This is why this word has the meanings ‘reach (get to) a place’, ‘find’, ‘receive
(e.g. a letter)’, ‘start feeling (an emotion)’, etc. etc. etc.
4 Pus-kata = kata ‘how’. It’s common for Indigenous speakers in this particular region to add pus before any of the
“question words”.
5 This is the extremely common “plural yaka”, known in all dialects of Chinuk Wawa. It occurs several times in this
letter. Due to the influence of Indigenous people’s grammar, yaka is essentially a generic 3rd person pronoun in CW,
used for both singular (‘she, he’) and plural (‘they’). The specific plural pronoun klaska /ɬaska/, which occurs a few
lines later, is somewhat rare.
‘All of our Clinton folks are all right,’
pi kakwa6 Hai-Bar tilikom, klaska tlus,
‘and likewise the High Bar people, they’re doing fine,’
ilo-klaksta mimlus;7
‘nobody has died;’
= Tlus maika hilp,
‘Please help out,’
styuil kopa nsaika.
‘pray for us.’
= Ukuk liplit nsaika tlap,
‘That priest we wound up getting,’
= ilo-kanawi iaka drit [mamuk (kopa)?] nsaika;
‘he doesn’t do everything the right way for us;’
Iht-iht iaka ilo lah[an]shut,
‘Some folks he doesn’t confess,’
= iht-iht ilo tlap [ = likalisti];
‘some don’t wind up receiving communion;’
= kakwa, nsaika tlap-sik-tomtom.
‘so we wind up feeling disappointed.’
= Pus ko Istir Sondi, =
‘When Easter Sunday comes along,’
nsaika komtaks
‘we’ll know’
ka-son8 maika ko kopa Bonapart.
‘when you’ll be arriving at Bonaparte.’
Pi klahawiam nsaika kyutan;
‘But our horses are in bad shape;’
= iht-iht iaka tlus kyutan,
‘one or two are good horses,’
klunas iaka klatwa nanich maika.
‘maybe those will go see you.’
= Wel gud-bai maika, papa Pir Lshyun.
‘Well, goodbye (to) you, father P.re Le Jeune.’
Naika nim Shoni Pitir, Klinton < B.C. >
‘I’m called Johnny Peter, Clinton, BC.’
6 Kakwa (‘likewise’) is used here more-or-less synonymously with the more common wiht ‘also’.
7 ‘Nobody has died’: local deaths and illnesses were a constant topic in these letters. Health conditions in Indigenous
communities remained daunting while Settler presence and dominance continued expanding.
8 Ka-son /qʰá-sán/ is normal in BC for ‘when’, but it literally means ‘where-day